Why did one sitcom fly and one die?
When the BBC combined two comedies last week it was very much a game of two halves. First the new sitcom Warren starred Martin Clunes as an irascible southern driving instructor who’d moved to the north and was struggling to fit in with the friendlier locals. Then This Time with Alan
Partridge plopped Steve Coogan’s bumbling broadcaster on to the squishy sofa of a magazine-style programme and watched the excruciating awkwardness unfold.
Neither series will win any awards for diversity, since their protagonists are that much-maligned 21st-century bogeyman: middle-aged, middleclass, suburban white males. That’s where the similarities end.
Warren was a widely panned flop. Partridge was a five-star triumph, garlanded with gushing rave reviews. So what went wrong in one case and right in the other?
Jimmy Donny Cosgrove and Paul McKenna, Warren’s creators, failed to grasp one of the fundamental tenets of British sitcom, which has a long and ignoble tradition of lovable losers. From Tony Hancock to David Brent, most British classic comedies are built around fatally flawed anti-heroes. Yet they have to be written with wit, warmth and heart.
We’ll wince as misfortunes are heaped upon them, secretly willing them to triumph but knowing deep down they never will.
If they do ever fulfil their ambition, our love often dissipates. We adored Delboy Trotter when he was a wheeler-dealer with the mantra: “This time next year, Rodders, we’ll be millionaires.” However, Only Fools
and Horses was never the same once the Peckham brothers did strike it rich, courtesy of an antique watch that sold for £6.2 million ($12m).
So often, comedy is found in the gap between these characters’ inflated self-image and the harsh reality. David Brent prided himself on being the perfect boss when he was actually a fist-chewingly terrible one.
However, Warren misunderstood the entire trope. Making your title character a hapless failure isn’t enough. Nor is making him a misanthrope. Impotent rage has long been a comedy staple yet the audience needs to relate to the ranting. Writers Cosgrove and McKenna made Warren a loser but forgot the lovable part.
Alan Partridge, by stark contrast, is one of comedy’s most enduring creations. Masterfully performed by Steve Coogan, he’s been going strong for 28 years across multiple platforms. This decade, Coogan’s cowriters have been twins Rob and Neil Gibbons, whose fresh ideas, laserguided gags and deep affection for Alan have given the character a new lease of life. It’s all very winkingly postmodern but, at its heart, Partridge is firmly in the lovable loser tradition. In Alan’s deluded mind, he’s a broadcasting heavyweight whose day has finally come. In reality, he’s gaffe-prone, insecure and forever just out of his depth.
In the end, it comes down to the writing. Both Coogan and Clunes are fine performers. Whereas one was given a gold-standard script to work with by the Gibbons brothers, the other was saddled with tin-eared mediocrity.
So often, comedy is found in the gap between these characters’ inflated selfimage and the harsh reality.